I wake up in a room, with no memory of how I got here. No memory of my past, or much anything else. All I know is what I see.
I’m in what seems like a cabin. It’s old and dingy, but functional. A bed sits in one corner. A bathroom at one side, and a pantry at the other. Wood throughout. The floor is wide wood planks, cold to the touch. A furnace sits in the middle of the cabin radiating heat.
The door is locked. Windows are boarded over. I’m trapped. Cue the panic attack.
There are some books in the room with me, sitting on a table next to the bed. I grab the thickest one and start reading. It seems really old, but I’ve got a lot of time to kill.
I find this journal at the bottom of the stack of books. It’s basically blank, barring a few smudges and recipes scattered throughout.
The rest of my life could be spent in this lonely room. Of course, I remember nothing else. And I have no way to escape. Only a book, with a glimmer of hope.
There seems to be enough food to last quite some time. I won’t be eating great, but I won’t be starving. So as long as I can manage not to lose my mind, I can live. And I have no quality of life to compare it to. This life is all I know. And all I will likely ever know.
The book says that one day I will be free. There aren’t a whole lot of options. There appears to be a world outside of the room, but there were no windows. No sounds except the furnace and the occasional bird.
Do I try to escape? Or just sit and wait? There are other options. I could probably figure out a way to kill myself. There was a lot to think about. And a lot of time.
So I lay in the small bed and think. Hours turn into days, And days into months. One thing was clear: no one was coming. It was just me and this room.
Who knows, maybe this is prison of some sort. Maybe I committed a terrible crime, and this was my punishment.
Maybe I was kidnapped, and left here to die. The possibilities were endless. I would probably never know.
All I know for sure is that I am alive. And there is a book that makes some promises that I am starting to believe. It’s really all the hope that I have since I don’t have any memories of life outside this room.
I actually manage to get into a pretty good routine, showering, eating, reading, and doing some stretches. Of course, it didn’t fill the whole day, but it wasn’t like I was just sitting around all day waiting to die. Of course, that’s what I am doing. There’s no way around it.
I’ve gotten pretty familiar with the book, and if it’s true, there is absolutely no way to get out if I killed myself. Either that or I’d just go somewhere worse than this. But the other place sounded pretty good. If I could manage to stay sane, something was happening. The book is talking to me.
It was quiet at first. Some words that I had read simply echoed in the back of my head as I did some pushups. But later I realized that those words applied to what I was thinking about. And as I grew more and more familiar with the book, the voice grew and grew.
The voice is now a character in the cabin, whether a figure of my imagination or not. It was real. What is even stranger though, is that I could argue with the voice. And as I thought about doing something, the voice would answer with a reason why that was wrong. It is like the book had produced the voice, and the voice is training me.
I know it sounds ridiculous, but this is my life. And the book said that this might happen. But it is still hard to believe.
So if the book promised the voice, and the voice is real, does that mean that the escape is real? Can I trust this process with my life? Or better yet, is there anything else to trust? Were there any other options? Any other hope?
The book certainly promised the voice and a better life. And I believe it. I’ll sit here in this empty cabin as long as it takes. Until someone finds me or I go to a better place.
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